Ask five lawyers in Mumbai who owns a song generated by AI and you may get five careful answers, none of them final. That is not because they are dodging. It is because India has not decided yet.
This piece looks at the question from the artist's side: what has actually happened in 2025 and 2026, what is still open, and how to protect yourself while the law catches up.
The question the government has not answered yet
In April 2025, the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) set up a committee to look at AI and copyright. Its first working paper, released in December 2025, dealt only with the input side: whether AI companies can train on copyrighted songs, books and films. It proposed a mandatory blanket licence with royalties paid through a central body. We covered that paper in detail in an earlier post.
The output side, the part that decides who owns what an AI makes, was meant to come in a second paper. That paper is still not out. In October 2026, Hindustan Times reported that the committee had not met since June, and members said discussions on ownership, liability and originality had become sporadic. The paper was originally promised for around February 2026.
So for now, there is no specific rule on whether a fully AI-generated song is protected by copyright in India, or who would own it.
What the existing law says, and does not say
The Copyright Act, 1957, was written long before generative AI. It does contain a line for "computer-generated" works, naming the person who causes the work to be created as its author. But lawyers disagree about how far that stretches when a model does most of the creative work from a one-line prompt. Until either Parliament or a court addresses it head-on, treat any claim of "you fully own your AI song" with caution.
What the courts have said so far
India's biggest AI copyright case so far does not involve a song, but the music industry is deeply involved in it.
ANI, the news agency, sued OpenAI in the Delhi High Court in 2024. In early 2025, Indian music labels including T-Series and Saregama, through the Indian Music Industry body, sought to join the case, arguing that their recordings, compositions and lyrics could also be used to train AI without permission.
In July 2026, Justice Amit Bansal refused ANI an interim injunction. At the prima facie stage, the court held that storing ANI's articles to train ChatGPT fell under the "private or personal use, including research" exception in Section 52(1)(a), and that ANI had not shown ChatGPT's answers were substantially similar copies. The court said its views were only for the interim stage, and ANI has since appealed.
For music, this matters. If the same reasoning were applied to songs, labels would have a harder time stopping AI training on their catalogues. That is exactly why the industry is watching the appeal.
On the voice side, the picture is firmer. The Bombay High Court's 2024 order in Arijit Singh's case protected his voice and persona from unauthorised AI cloning. Personality rights are, for now, the strongest shield a singer has.
Where labels stand
Labels are not rejecting AI outright. They are pushing to be paid and asked first. In its submission to DPIIT, the Indian Music Publishers Forum argued against compulsory licensing and broad data-mining exceptions, asking instead for voluntary licensing and transparency rules for AI developers.
Globally, that approach is producing deals. Warner Music settled with Suno and Udio in late 2025 and agreed licensing partnerships, while other major labels continued their own negotiations and cases. Indian labels will likely take note.
What this means if you are an artist today
Until the rules are written, the practical advice is simple:
- Keep the human part strong. Your lyrics, your melody choices, your vocal. That is where your ownership is clearest.
- Keep records. Project files, drafts and dated voice notes help prove what you created.
- Do not clone voices without written consent.
- Read your AI tool's terms, because those, not Indian law, may currently decide what you can do with the output.
- Register and protect what you release, through Content ID and proper metadata.
Release with a distributor that keeps it simple
RMX Music is an Indian distributor working with 3,000+ artists and 2,200+ labels, with 20,000+ tracks delivered across 95+ platforms, from Spotify and JioSaavn to callertunes on Jio, Airtel, Vi and BSNL. Releases usually go live in 24-48 hours. You keep 100% ownership of your music and 95% of royalties, paid monthly, and YouTube Content ID with Visual Claims helps you track reuploads.
The Label plan is a one-time ₹4,500 for life, and the Agent plan is ₹15,000 lifetime. Whatever the courts decide about AI, your own songs deserve proper protection. Create your RMX Music account and release with confidence.